#308 - Crab Cakes w/ TJ's North Coast Sparkling & Moroccan Phyllo Pie w/ '10 Calera Viognier

All the leaves are brown (all the leaves are brown) and the sky is gray (and the sky is gray) California dreamin' (Cal-if-orn-ia dreamin') on such a winter's day...

I can't get the song out of my head! The Mamas & The Papas was splashed all over last night's film.

I'd put off watching Chungking Express for about 17 years. Probably rented it three times (speaking of Three Times, that film left Rain & Tears by Aphrodite's Child firmly implanted into my brain for about a month), but just never got to actually pushing play on the remote. No reason. Just didn't. My loss all those years. Gorgeous stuff.

But Slant Magazine's recent feature chronicling their top-200 films of the 90's has caused me to get off my butt (or on my butt, as it were, on the couch) and work the list, catching up on the films I missed, filling in the holes created by so much time wasted on silly things too numerous to list here (but I'm looking squarely at you, NFL).

So, as California Dreaming rumbles around in my head, I offer two California wines with food that made the California freshness sing.

#184 - TK Chicken, Kumatoes Provençal & Green Beans With '08 Turkey Flat Rosé

It's dangerous to know a little instead of a lot about HTML code.  Makes you think you can fix things or create an end-around when it's pretty obvious you can't.

So while you currently can't read these first few sentences because "TinyPic has been moved or deleted," I'll figure this out soon.  Or blow it up.  Either/or.

Quick one today.

Solid Monday night meal made better by the return of a favorite rosé, gone for about two years but inexplicably found on the shelves at Whole Foods.  And a 2008 to boot, which is just oddly odd in the oddest sort of odd way.

Food:  TK chicken, kumatoes Provençal, green beans, Dunbarton blue cheese cheddar, bread and butter 

Standard TK chicken.  Delicious with the difference this time being an almost buttery skin but the chicken became an afterthought with the compilation of great accoutrements.

Kumatoes Provençal.  A take.  Equal volumes bread crumbs, parsley and Bari giardiniera with a healthy portion of anchovies, then baked.  Deep achovy flavor, spectacular level of heat.

Green beans sautéed in the chicken pan with honey, red wine vinegar and thyme.  Felt needed and tasted delicious.  With the kumatoes Provençal and the green beans, there was enough range of flavor, depth and heartiness to feel like a meal in itself.  We gravitated toward these two elements because of that, leaving the chicken mostly as filler.  With the Tuscan bread, KerryGold butter and a beautiful Dunbarton blue cheese cheddar from Wisconsin, a cheddar that both of us thought might be the best cheddar we've ever had, this meal sans chicken could have been enough.

Good food that tasted like a place - distinct flavors that came together to feel like it was intentional, leaving an impression after just a few bites that a glowing satisfaction after the meal was guaranteed.

Wine:  2008 Turkey Flat Rosé ($19 - Whole Foods)

This has been missing for a couple years in Chicago.  A prized and loved rosé in Australia and that's probably why.  It's Mrs. Ney's favorite rosé and it might be mine as well.


Grenache (63%), Shiraz (18%), Cabernet Sauvignon (13%), Dolcetto (6%).

Though a 2008, this one's chugging along quite nicely.  Tasted a touch settled but still a wonderfully wild quality to it, tasting of the land more than polished and pretty.  A Grenache-y gnarly-ness to it with tannins still popping and a gift basket of red fruits jumping up and down with a darker edge to round it out.  Rose petal notes color the frame with a depth one doesn't see in rosés much and a great bite to it.

On various occasions, each grape separated itself out to reveal a singularity to each that was entirely welcome and delicious.

Pairing:  88  A perfect example of the wine staying right in line with the boldness of the food

Very little enhancement but we were both struck with how the structure and body of the wine played right into and stayed right with how big the food flavors were.  This one kept up with no trouble whatsoever.

At times, it seemed like the Grenache singled itself out with the kumatoes Provençal, like it pushed a button and said the Grenache needs to step up here with the heat from the giardiniera.  Same thing seemed to happen with the chicken and the Cabernet's curranty notes perking up.  Identical with the Shiraz and the green beans with a more dark fruit-juicy note.

Full and happy with the added bonus of having a wine that offers so much in, dare I say, a fun package.

#124 - TK Chicken, Hummus & Kumatoes With '07 Guiberteau Saumur Blanc

Here's a $58 meal that surpassed (by a HUGE margin) a recent $300 meal out in the world.

Chicken = $11

Hummus from Semiramis = $10

Kumatoes = $4

Pea shoots and Pomegrante = $4

Wine = $29

The entire meal last night, beginning to end, wine and all, cost the same as the bottle of the decent little albariño drank last week at a restaurant that I could have bought at Binny's for $22.

Far be it for me to discourage dining out at the new and hip. I work in the industry. But doing the math on occasion and taking the time to research food with wine pairings makes it hardly an argument.

Also, with Joe Bastianich now telling us that the proper restaurant business model demands a wine mark-up of FOUR TIMES, the "fabulous" tax on dining out continues to go up.

Food: Thomas Keller Chicken, Hummus and Pita and a Kumato-Pea Shoot Salad

Thomas Keller chicken. Taken out a little earlier than usual to experiment with resting temps and levels of juiciness. Worked. Only ate the leg and thigh and left the breast for lunch sandwiches due to the ton of food on the (coffee) table. Great skin again and moist meat ("giggity"). There's chicken. There's wine can chicken. And then there's TK chicken.

Two orders of hummus from Semiramis because their hummus and the wine drank with this meal in April was Devin Hester on kick returns. "You are ridiculous!" The rest of the pairing in April at Semiramis was much like the rest of the Bears (ugh - but I'm a Browns fan so...) but the hummus and Saumur pairing shocked us. It's great hummus.

Kumatoes (brown tomato hybrid) dressed with olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper. It's a new tomato creation with a higher sugar content that taste almost meaty, plummy and like a drizzle of balsamic was slapped on them. Still the great tomato acid but darker and magically delicious. Can't recommend them more highly. Great stuff.

Pea shoot and pomegranate seeds with the kumatoes.

The meal had everything for about $15 a person. Hate to beat a dead horse here, but that got us about six bites of food each last week.

Wine: 2007 Domaine Guiberteau Saumur Blanc ($29 - Red & White)

Tough one to find on a consistent basis. Red & White usually has it. Cellar Rat as well, IIRC. Flickinger Wines in the South Loop has many of the single-vineyard offerings from Domaine Guiberteau. Flickinger does a spectacular job. Get to know it. Scored a 2005 Sanguis Bossman there last year for $50 (rare then and now and no cheaper than $70 elsewhere).

Dried honey and chalk on the nose. Half-stewed pears on the palate with a load of beeswax-honey surrounding it on the palate. Medium depth on the finish with something that resembled plum (?) on the way down with a graceful acidity. Little spikes of apple, citrus and nuts here and there that may not have been consistent or focused but lovely in the way Chenin Blanc can surprise.

And I guess that's the rub. Chenin Blanc continues to be the white grape that defines elegant for us. It's just so gorgeous in nearly every form. Get out of the bargain offerings that tend to be inconsistent and unremarkable, spent just a few dollars more (mediocre movie), and you consistently wander into the realm of silk freakin' magic.

Domaine Guiberteau practices natural wine-making in all its glory, letting much of their wine rest of its lees and...heck...just go here because WickerParker was there.

Pairing: 94 Fit like a glove

Medium depth all over the place. In the food and in the wine as both, instead of offering little jumps of goodness in that medium depth range, exploring every nook and cranny of what a medium depth meal can bring. Tasted purposeful.

Best with just a bite of pita, but the hummus and pita followed right behind. The wine turned the hummus into something much more than its previous self, becoming hummus with a (pea)nutty tone and drawing out more of the nuttiness in the wine.

Salty skin on the chicken turned the wine into a minerally-yeasty pear-honey wonder and played beautifully with the darker meat.

Held up admirably with the kumatoes but lost its way with the pea shoots, bringing out too much unwelcome lime and a short finish.

The entire meal hopped and jumped, changed and surprised, all within an entirely beautiful tight box ("giggity"). Everything become more heightened and vivid versions of themselves, seeming made for each other with flavors stacked upon flavors stacked upon flavors.

$58. Beat that at even a low-cost, quality restaurant and you win my undying affection.

#127 - Chicken Breast, Anchovy Pasta & Kumatoes With '06 Guiberteau Saumur Rouge

Was it Sicilian?

Certainly Mediterranean but with an inland French bent.

Maybe Californian? That cuisine seems to co-opt anything that borders on the rustic and fresh.

To me, it tasted like Avec.

Food: Mustard-garlic chicken breasts with anchovy farro pasta and kumatoes with olives

Quick and easy Jacques Pepin mustard-garlic chicken breasts cooked under a brick à la Mark Bittman. Juicy, enough depth and stayed right smack dab in the same flavor range as the rest of the plate.

Winner of the night: Farro pasta mixed with anchovies, capers, aleppo pepper, toasted bread crumbs, lemon zest, extra virgin olive oil and parsley. Stellar stuff. HUGE anchovy hit in the best way, never turning fishy and toned down by the bread crumb filler and lemon zest. Perfect heat with oodles of aleppo pepper added. To use an overused word, just freakin' fantastically balanced, the kind of stuff I could eat again today and tomorrow and be utterly satisfied.

Kumatoes (second time in 10 days and eaten with another from the Guiberteau family of wines) drizzled with white balsamic vinegar and gaeta black olives. New favorite weird hybrid food-style substance. Darker tomato deliciousness with an almost plummy flavor that turns bright and low-grade acidic.

Kind of a shock. Mrs. Ney thought little about this meal and turned out like a plate full of Mediterranean joy.

And the wine did its part.

Wine: 2006 Domaine Guiberteau Saumur Rouge ($30 - Red & White)

Grape: 100% cabernet franc

SubRegion: Anjou-Saumur

Vintage (WS): 85 for cabernet franc - very rainy, leading to unripe grapes

Mostly indifferent to cab franc due to the few we've had that were rather ordinary, this one will force me to think about it in the future. Toss the vintage report out the window with this producer (see a two great write-ups over at Wicker Parker).

Dark and brooding raspberry pile here that tasted like a splash of cherry juice was spread over the top. Flowery (dried rose petals) with fine earth (kinda loamy) and herbs intermingling and an enormous amount of beautifully fine, twiggy, woody tannins dominating the entire background in the best possible sense. Made me truly understand the use of cabernet franc in a Bordeaux blend and what it offers w/r/t structure and finesse. Nice transitions that bordered on elegant. Given the little experience I have with cabernet franc, if asked, start here.

And it constantly changed in respectable ways with the food.

Pairing: 89 Enjoyed what it brought immensely

Had no real plan with this meal so we simply took the suggestion from the Jacques Pepin recipe on pairings. Loire red and we had one we didn't really care about.

No complaints in the least.

Stayed pretty much itself without food, which we liked, and kept in line with the chicken and its medium-depth of flavor with a touch of flavor punch (I'm practicing my Sandra Lee non-descriptive descriptiveness). Liked it.

But with the the anchovy-farro pasta, it sung. Intensified the aleppo pepper to a large extent, separating it out right away with everything popping up later. Got to explore the complexity of the tannins with the pasta as they changed and glommed onto different flavors in the wine with slightly different combinations of bites.

Nearly identical acid levels in the kumatoes and the wine made it compatible, if not spectacular (a bit too much one-dimensional earth and twigs) but with a bite of chicken and kumato, the wine tasted surprisingly like a handful of red apple peel.

Changed and surprised, those are the two words that kept coming back.

We'd do it again in a second.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #5

Nice piece by Eric Asimov about domestic chenin blanc in the New York Times a few days ago.

And Julia Edelman pretty much nails The Food Blog in the New Yorker this week.

But we're immune to such criticism here. We're more of a food journal (see what I did there). With terrible pictures. One might even say we're the ANTI-food blog, because this is wildly disorganized and has only been of interest to us for years. Which is the way we like it.

And let me save you a few hours of your life: don't read 10:04, A Novel, by Ben Lerner. Just...don't. Unless you enjoy 78 segues akin to "you know... everything is just one big organism, you know..."

Total food and wine cost for the week: $138 for food and $123 for wine = $261

Sunday: Salmon, Bagels, Cream Cheese, Arugula, Kumatoes and Pickled Onion-Manzano with 2014 Berger Grüner Veltliner Kremstal

Food Details: Simple stuff. Smoked salmon from Trader Joe's, bagels, herbed-up cream cheese, arugula, kumatoes and pickled onion-manzano from Friday. Build. Eat. Drink. Enjoy.

Did We Like It? Best meal of the week, me thinks. Right there with Pizza Art and chicken with fennel panzanella. The workweek's been long and it's freakin' hot. This Sunday staple Wipes. That. Right Out of the Mind. This is always delicious, but typically has avocado. Weren't ripe yet. But the absence of it here made this meal better. Avocado creaminess would have taken away from a sharpness and cut in each bite that we like/d. Tastes more balanced, rather than some sort of embarrassment of food riches that doesn't always add up to great. Plus, adding avocado to all the other stuff makes for a tall-ass bagel, with neck cranes that make me feel like I'm in a competitive eating contest or something.

How Was The Wine? Perfect. Fresh Berger, our first of the year. We had the 2013 in week #1 of this 365 experiment and it was ever-so subtly losing its zip and verve. Not here. All of Berger's freshness here on full display. Stony, peppy, lively, proper hits and hints of greeny-citrusy fruit, a smart and smooth conversationalist with great flow.

And The Pairing? Perfect times two! Without the avocado, each salmon-bagel bite had a more properly pared-down interplay between the ingredients, allowing us to taste everything and how they played with each other. The wine picked that up, snuggled its way in, gave even more to the pithy conversation, and then refreshed. Per. Fect.

Cost: $19 for food, $15 for wine = $34
  

Saturday: Pasta With Meatballs, Rapini & Amaranth with 2014 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Food Details: Greek creste pasta with TJ's meatballs, rapini, amaranth greens, pecorino, garlic, onions, olive oil, and herbs.

Did We Like It? Big bowl of food. Mrs. Ney found it disappointing. After working a patio shift in 90-degree heat, I found it to be welcome meat and carbs with greens.

How Was The Wine? One-liter rosé, malbec and syrah, $7.50 at Whole Foods (on sale with 6-bottle discount). It's been our workhorse rosé this summer. Here, it tasted like cherry Life Savers

And The Pairing? Meh. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Cost: $10 for food, $8 for wine = $18


Friday: Zucchini Baba Ganoush, Pickled Onion-Dill-Serrano, Kumatoes, Arugula and Pita with 2014 Nortico Alvarinho Vinho Verde

Source: Recipe here, from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, by Claudia Roden (page 65)

Food Details: Zucchini instead of eggplant in baba ganoush, skipped the cumin. Generous amount of olive oil and za'atar dumped on top of baba ganoush. Onion-dill-serrano pepper quick-pickled, mixed with arugula. Sliced kumatoes. Pita to stuff, top, and/or dip. It's Lebanese-Eygptian pick and choose.

Did We Like It? Good Lord, Yes. Creamy, herby, spicy, bitter, pickle, tomato. All that crap. It's the polar opposite of the casserole food we ate growing up. That's probably why we love Middle Eastern food so much. First, it's freakin' great, then we compare it to the meatloaf-lasagna dinners we ate when we were 12, back when lemon-pepper chicken was for Special.

How Was The Wine? Here's an example of a wine that tastes so much better when there isn't a Luis Pato Branco sitting next to it to compare. Firmly in the realm of 'like' that time, this time, with this food, it was perfect. Loads of energy and verve, with seaside air, gas and snap. Such firm, yet forgiving acid. For $11 at Whole Foods, after having it with this food, this wine went from a nice alternative to "buy that, you'll like it. A lot!"

And The Pairing? See above. Something about the char on the vegetables and the umami of the tahini played perfectly against its brightness. You put this meal in front of me on vacation at some cheap café on the coast with this wine...I'd remember it for years.

Cost: $10 for food, $11 for wine = $21    


Thursday: Chicken Enchiladas with 2014 La Granja Blanco Castilla y León

Source: Enchiladas (here) from Cook's Illustrated's Cover And Bake, rice from Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday.

Food Details: Leftover chicken from Tuesday, corn tortillas, onion, tomato sauce, cilantro, cheese - it's all in the recipe linked above. Mexican rice with tomatillos, onion, herbs and peas.

Did We Like It? If there's one weekday meal that we've eaten throughout our 12+ years in Chicago, it's probably enchiladas in some form, these enchiladas for the last eight or so. It's a Mexican "clean out the fridge!" dinner in a form we always like. Tastes like Home.

How Was The Wine? Tastes like vacation on the cheap. White Spanish wine, a verdejo and viura blend, with crispness, dryness and creaminess; lightly floral, lightly citrusy...$5 wine done well. Guzzle-able.

And The Pairing? It works. Cleans everything up nicely while offering some stone fruit pit to finish. We're always happy to drink this wine, because it's just so likable.

Cost: $8 for food, $5 for wine = $13


Wednesday: Pizza Art Café with Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco

Food Details: Greek salad to start, margherita, diavola and Pugliese pizzas. It's our standard order at this wildly underrated pizza place in Albany Park. Solid margherita, best diavola yet, and the Pugliese with smoked beef added is crazy-pants, smoky-cheesy good. "Why are we not there more often?"

Did We Like It? See above. Big thumbs up. Beautiful night to boot. Napa-style clear air. Felt like it'd been months since a night like that, or any beautiful kind, showed up in Chicago.

How Was The Wine? After some experimentation, Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco is the one and only wine to take to Pizza Art for us. Captures everything in a wide net while maintaining its tart, frothy, energetic strut, while its $12 price tag at Vin Chicago keeps everything budget-y. Brought a bottle of 2013 Efeste Feral Sauvignon Blanc for the Pugliese, a surprisingly good individual pairing.

And The Pairing? See above. If you're going to Pizza Art, Cleto Chiarli is the choice.

Cost: $50 for food, $32 for wine = $82


Tuesday: Roasted Chicken and Fennel Panzanella with 2014 Broc Cellars Picpoul Blanc Luna Matta Vineyard Paso Robles

Food Details: Chicken rubbed with white pepper and fennel pollen, bay and lemon shoved under the skin; roasted. A roasted fennel panzanella salad which, and you can see to the right, was enough to feed a small army. And yet both of us pretty much finished our plates (with a good chunk of the bread taken out), because it was delicious. Salad of roasted fennel, lemon, onion; the rest of the celery/fennel mostarda from last Monday, multi-colored baby tomatoes, arugula, dill, tarragon, oil and vinegar. Apart from dumping in the mostarda, this was exactly the recipe from New Year's Eve.

Did We Like It? First of all, great chicken. Moist, fantastic white pepper-fennel pollen chicken skin, just a terrific bird. But this was panzanella with a side of chicken. A wacko amount of flavors we love all together in Big Salad form. With a wine this was nuts.

How Was The Wine? We joined the Broc wine club because it included wines like this (still available, btw). Picpoul, a wine we dismissed for years but have come to sort of love recently due to a Trader Joe's cheap-o French one, is all fennel bite, creamy citrus, wee bit of salt and acid. It doesn't crave your love. It's just itself. This Broc offering from Paso Robles is more delicate than the French ones we've had, offering a sunny-foggy acid, lilty fruit presence, and delicious gaseous finish. Just when you think it might be too ethereal, it asserts its presence. We loved the snot out of it. Loved, loved, loved it. Particularly with food catered to it.

And The Pairing? The food brought everything out in the wine, especially with a roasted lemon bite and fennel, becoming a broader, more friendly, complete wine. This isn't a drink-on-its-own wine, as it barely reaches even pleasant by itself. It's too simple and muted. With food, it's "HELLO! Look what I can do!"

Cost: $24 for food, $32 for wine = $56     


Monday: Indian Spread with 2012 Luis Pato Vinho Espumante Bruto Baga Rosé Bairrada

Source: 660 Curries, by Raghavan Iyer

Food Details: Goat curry, substituting goat for lamb in the recipe for lamb curry in a sweet onion-tomato sauce (pg. 190). Coriander, cumin, sweet paprika, cayenne, turmeric, ginger, garlic, cardamom pods, bay, tomato sauce, fried onion, ground goat, stewed. Topped with cilantro. It's Indian Goat Chili!

Amaranth leaves recipe (pg. 461) mixing amaranth leaves and beet greens with peanuts, black and yellow mustard seeds, cumin, turmeric and cayenne. Didn't have asafetida. We'll be picking it up on the next trip to Devon, as Mrs. Ney is curious. Beet raita (adding beets to David Tanis's raita recipe - it's a good one). Trader Joe's naan - entirely acceptable naan on the cheap, done well.

Did We Like It? We did. Didn't love it by any stretch but we got our Indian fix with plenty of spices and a proper triangulation of Indian dip-dunk-cool-repeat. The Goat curry was nice, but maybe a bit too chili-ish. Big winner was these freakin' amaranth leaves. Greeny-planty-earthy loveliness with every bite. Beet raita served its purpose quite well. We liked this. All of it.

How Was The Wine? It's Luis Pato. Enough said. This is sparkling baga with a bit of maria gomes. Called a rosé but it's more of a sparkling red, with a cherry-currant punch, touch of spice and earth, and lovely froth. The maria gomes, with its characteristic wooly quality, offers a lacy structural help and something that turns into a red apple-watermelon background refreshment. We love it. And it loves food.

And The Pairing? Helped immensely. Became the tie that bound all the flavors together. Nice elevation and brightening of flavors with this pairing, taking the Indian spread to a place that was quite happy. Luis Pato loves food. You can tell by the wine he makes.

Cost: $17 for food, $20 for wine = $37
   

#164 - TK Chicken, Pea Risotto, Kumatoes & Radishes with '08 Vacheron

"It was the best, Jerry! The best!"

Tons of fine, right and upstanding pairings lately but none blew us away.

In fact, since the glory that was Moroccan-inflected tuna with Ponzi/Ken Wright one month ago, it's been two easy weeknight meal pairings - meatloaf and sauerkraut pierogis with a cheap Trader Joe's gewürztraminer and sopa seca with a cheap Calina Carménère - that impressed us the most.

Oh, yeah. Dak Bulgogi with a cheap Trader Joe's Vouvray demi-sec was some pretty great stuff as well.

Makes me think I should stop getting all snotty about the Trader Joe's wine selection.

But I digest. Last night. Back on the horse with a meal that tasted like a cleansing spring rain.

Food: Thomas Keller chicken with English pea risotto and kumatoes topped with radishes

The usual TK chicken, salt and white pepper with thyme sprinkled on top after cooking. Taken out five degrees earlier to keep the breasts moist (huh-huh). The usual result. Skin that could be sold on the street next to a crack dealer and take home similar coin. Fantastic leg and thigh meat with breast meat that was above serviceable.

Risotto made with Trader Joe's English peas (producto de Guatemala), onion, chicken stock, tarragon and mint, finished with parmesan. Here's where the spring rain came in. Tasted like everything that comes with the anticipation of exiting winter and entering the utter joy of spring, greening grass and the months of city smells left dormant for months under a blanket of scrotum-shriveling snow and cold and awakened by a constant, two-day, 50 degree, light rain.

Heaping mound of risotto that tasted like Hope. We're not sure the Englishness of the peas (producto de Guatemala) dramatically changed the dish but they were entirely welcome nonetheless. The pea essence, thrown in three minutes before finishing, still took over as the dominating but easy-breezy presence in the starchy-oozy run-off. Glorious stuff.

Kumatoes topped with razor-thin radish slices. Got an Oxo mandoline for Christmas. First time we've used it. While the thought of cleaning the thing made me initially wonder if it would feel worth it, that went away after the first bite. The paper-thin aspect brought about the exact desired effect - a radishy hint with every bite without overpowering anything else with its radishy radishness. I love radishes but they can be a bully at times. Worked beautifully with kumatoes doused in salt and left to sit for an hour and a tarragon-mustard-shallot vinaigrette with the whole composition lending a dark "meaty" quality to the rest of the plate.

This was What We Like. Both of us fell in love about two bites in.

We could have ate this meal with any wine and been completely satisfied but the wine brought it to places we didn't expect.

Wine: 2008 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre Blanc ($30 - Binny's)

Grassy notes with a sauvignon blanc provide a good match with the impetus of the meal, the English peas (producto de Guatemala). We figured we'd like it. Just not this much.

Minerals were what we wanted and that's what we got.

Pretty in the glass, a pure, pretty, light straw yellow with greenish traces. Simple nose of flint and a delicate lemon-lime peel right away with it becoming more complex as it warmed up, turning to an orchardy-type nose. Or what a grocery store smells like as the air-controller hits you as you walk through the automatic doors on a rainy day. Or dumpster juice...but in a great way.

Dry, fresh, delicate and confident on the palate, bringing some great light touches of lime peel intermingled with lemon spritz and a wee hint of grass clippings that transition to something like big rocks halfway down. The finish is what we loved the most. A small, beautiful touch of something like peach skin mixed with flint, limestone and an acidity that wasn't necessarily mouth-watering but served more to bring everything together for a graceful and balanced coda. It was a finish that immediately summed everything up with a concentrated hit of everything that came before. Great. Stuff.

Fully-certified biodynamic Sancerre done very well. Couldn't have loved it more.

Pairing: 94 Like Spring Training (Opening Day is 37 days and five hours away, BTW)

Came off like a day where you didn't expect much of note to happen and everything, very organically, turns into this glorious and easy day of heavy and fun activity done in the manner and nature of when, where and how you want.

Peas and the wine made everything stand up straight and get all right and proper while the radishes turned the wine into something oodles more complex, offering more orchard-grocery store-dumpster qualities that made for some delicious stuff in the glass and on the plate.

Tasted...Balanced.

We have a lot of friends/co-workers in our life that don't really care to get how food and wine go together. This meal would have turned even the most skeptical of the lot.

Without much expectation, it turned into Exactly What We Wanted.

Oh, yeah. For everything? About 50 bucks.

Birthday Week

While half the customers in the place resemble a Match.com commercial, Tanta, a Peruvian vittles, wine and cocktails restaurant downtown, has the pleasant aspect of not feeling like anything in Chicago. The rooftop bar feels like Spain and the restaurant feels eerily Californian in scope, minimalism, pop and chatter. Get anything ceviche-related, don't get the beef cheeks. Get the cocktails, don't look at other customers  - they're looking around enough for both of you. Eat the plantain chips, make sure your servers and bussers don't take away things that aren't finished. We went to Mr. Gastón Arcía's restaurant in Madrid and liked it muchly. Very similar punch here. We'd go again, which is saying something in our restaurant visits of late. Best thing: the rooftop opens at 3pm, has a full drink menu and enough lil noshes to make it a meal. That's probably our next play, should we return.

This week's food:

Christmas

Let's kickstart this here blog back up.

The 365 Days of Food and Wine experiment, while interesting, sapped my ability to accurately describe the delicious food Mrs. Ney made. It got to the point where my word canon reached the very end of its description limit. I'd re-read things I'd written and think, "Hot damn that's boring!" And that wasn't doing any justice to the time and effort Mrs. Ney had put in to researching, thinking about, and making dinners.

The break was needed, but it's time to step back in, because while we hope anyone searching for food and wine pairing advice - a vexing and frightening proposition for many - comes across this site and comes to understand that it's not that frightening, mostly we want and need the reference. We also like to see how our year and tastes flowed and changed.

Christmas seems a good place to start.

Food: Bittman Lamb Osso Buco with Sean Brock Grits and Rapini

Mark Bittman osso buco recipe, from NYT Cooking. Lamb osso buco from D'Artagnan, seared, then cooked for 90 minutes on the stovetop with garlic, anchovies, sage, marjoram, rosemary, white wine, salt and pepper until tender. Meat removed, sauce reduced, served on the side. Cracked pink peppercorns sprinkled on top of lamb. Sean Brock grits, from Heritage: A Cookbook (page 74 - "How to cook grits like a Southerner"). Simple rapini done up with salt and pepper that somehow didn't taste so simple.

Luscious lamb. Frenchy touches with northern Italian guts. Osso buco is never going to be the best meat I've ever had in my life, but when it hits, like here, it's a meat-melty wonder. Rather perfect grits, as Mr. Brock seems to offer with most anything he offers (see burgers, patty melts, steaks, grits, griddle cakes...he's one of our house food guiders to the delicious). Silky, but corny and buttery, with a surprising jump and lightness. A great balance and vacillation between all the flavors. When some of the anchovy pan sauce bled into the rapini, it was maybe the best rapini we've had in a good long time.

This was a dinner worthy of Christmas, after a shockingly easy Christmas Eve visit to the family.

Wine: 2015 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris Fanucchi-Wood Vineyard RRV

We loved the poop out the 2014 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris, first had at Chez Panisse two Septembers ago. So board and giving. The 2015 is more sturdy and focused in its flavors. It gets more directly and quickly to the point it's trying to make. Bitter orange peel galore, like Chinotto or Aperol in presence and aggressiveness. Wispy touches of herbs and minerals, particularly on the back-end, even something tea-like thrown in there on occasion. This one needs to warm up significantly in order for it to stretch its legs and become more elastic and playful. The 2014 was all ethereal, sunshine-y goodness, but sputtered with some food. The 2015 is more punchy, and that over the course of the next year might make it more suitable to the flavors we love.

Pairing: Once it reached the right temp...nothing wrong with that.

I opened a 2005 Gourt des Mautens Rasteau (Jérome Bressy) and decanted couple of hours before dinner, but it didn't budge from its hairy-backed, tannic self, and would have been just terrible with how delicate the lamb was. But the Jolie-Laide served us quite well. Not perfect, not by any means. Once it warmed up though, there was enough weaving in-and-out with the grits and lamb together to say, "Slap Daddy! That's just fine!"

Lunch: Homemade duck pâté with Rogue Flora Nelle Blue Cheese, fig marmalade, baguette and salad, served with 2011 Matthiasson Vermouth. Mrs. Ney whipped up A LOT of duck pâté, this one more country in style with its small chunks of duck meat. Turned into one of those pâtés one eats and thinks THIS is how all pâté should be. Every flavor bouncing and jiving with each other. Rogue Flora Nelle has that ideal touch of blue streaks while still retaining a clean brightness to it. House fav.

All served with a Matthiasson Vermouth that's been sitting in this house way too long, and it was great here. Smoky tangerine peel, blood orange and bark. Still going quite strong. A bite of cheese and fig marmalade on baguette with a sip of vermouth was as pairing-perfect as it gets.

Damn good (and lazy) Christmas Day! We didn't get to the "Feast of the One Fish" (brandade). It's in the works for New Year's Eve. With bubbles. We need bubbles. So we'll have them. Because bubbles are essential in life.

After the jump is a list of all the pairings we've had since this blog stopped, some of it in shorthand. It's for our reference:

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #52

This is it, our last week chronicling every day of food and wine for an entire year.

The sheer volume of red herrings and incomplete explanations in Marcella made for a confounding consumption of a TV series.  Worth it? Marginally.

Taste of Cherry is on Hulu if you're interested in perfect filmmaking and seeing why Abbas Kiarostami's death was so mourned this week.

*** Full-Year Total: $7307 for food, $8161 for wine = $15,468 ***

*** Last Half-Year (26 week) Summary: $3765 for food, $4096 for wine = $7861 ***

Total food and wine cost for the week: $100 for food and $75 for wine = $175

Total food and wine cost for the month: $492 for food and $339 for wine = $831

Sunday: Scaccia with 2013 Cleto Chiarli "Vecchia Modena" Lambrusco di Modena

Food Details: Fitting that we end this 365 Days of Pairings with one of our new favorite things. It's pizza babka/lasagna bread (recipe). Semolina dough, San Marzano tomatoes, sharp provolone and smoked mozzarella standing in for caciocavallo, basil and garlic. Arugula salad to finish. It's layered, folded, Sicilian deliciousness.

Did We Like It? It's our new definition of Sunday Dinner. Fairly easy, fairly cheap, and the payoff is through the roof. Satisfaction to the nth degree.

How Was The Wine? An older Cleto Chiarli we found for $10. It's Lambrusco. Put a lil chill on it and you got tart red wine juice that knows what to do with Italian-type things. This one showed its age, with flavors somewhat muddled and a lack of top-notch verve, but even as it's settling in on its way to death, a lot to like. Nice cherry with a touch of tart red apple.

And The Pairing? It was $10, so no complaints. And overall, very little to carp about here with the pairing. The wine didn't cast its usual wide, frothy, tart, energetic net, but we didn't find much to dislike.

Cost: $16 for food, $10 for wine = $26  

Saturday: Salmon, Sprouts and Bagels with 2015 La Peña de España White Wine 

Food Details: Trader Joe's salmon, bagels, tarragon-dill cream cheese, kumatoes, and clover sprouts. Rip, top, eat.

Did We Like It? This is all anybody needs in life. The simplicity with this batch made it the best batch we've had of salmon and bagels. Sometimes, it's been with avocado. Though nice, it's sometimes too clumsy in the compilation of a bite and generally makes for too much "stuff." Usually, it's with arugula. Clover sprouts are better, here bringing a spiciness and a more delicate touch of greeny-ness that was rather perfect. Ripe kumatoes, perfect touch of herbs in the cream cheese, oddly very fresh bagels that had a wee bit of rye flavor to them. We loved the stink out of this.

How Was The Wine? A blend of 25% each of sauvignon blanc, muscat, verdejo and chardonnay, with a tiny wisp of Spanish air to it. It's mediocre at best, but showed its best face here.

And The Pairing? A fresh well water note popped up in this wine that previously was there the first time we had it. Wasn't resplendent, but a fine effort was being made on the part of the wine to lead to pairing satisfaction.

Cost: $25 for food, $6 for wine = $31

Friday: Uzbek Lamb Plov with 2015 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Food Details: Recipe here, via Cucee Sprouts. Leftover lamb shoulder from here, chickpeas, carrots, barberries, garlic, cumin, turmeric, rice. A one-pot meal that's considered the national dish of Uzbekistan. It smells like the worst gym sock ever while it's cooking, but it's damn delicious.

Did We Like It? We love it. Something about the low-level perkiness of every flavor coming together to create a unified, elevated, delicious whole makes for an utterly satisfying dinner every time.

How Was The Wine? We loved the 2014 for its price-to-happiness ratio, then its focus faded rather quick-like towards the end of last year. Only our second 2015 of this rosé. One-liter rosé, malbec and syrah, $7.50 at Whole Foods (on sale with 6-bottle discount). Tastes like dirt and iron, backed up by dark cherry and plum. And right now, it's so gosh-darn bright and fresh.

And The Pairing? PER-FECT! Weaved right into the food, giving beautiful, shiny fruit and refreshment reminiscent of a cold glass of water after laying sod in 90-degree sun. It glowed.

Cost: $4 for food, $8 for wine = $12    

Thursday: Pork-on-Pork Pizzas with NV Ocarossa Cuvée Rosso 

Food Details: Pork rib meat from the 4th, with ham, onion and tomato sauce, on Whole Foods cornmeal pizza crusts. Fresh basil on top after baking.

Did We Like It? Porky. Plenty of pork. Pork galore. We liked them. Didn't love them, but we liked them.

How Was The Wine? 100% ciliegiolo, one of the grapes used with sangiovese in Chianti blends (among others). It's essentially another in a long line of regional, light Italian quaffers in the style of Lambrusco, broadly speaking (I can recommend wines from the Lettere DOC in Campania). This is a wine made for a little chill to be put on it before serving. Big basket of cherries covered in dirt. On the drier side, with moderate acid and softer overall, with a tiny bit of pucker at the end. For $5...it's an option, and a good chance to try a grape most haven't. Can't say it's better than putting a chill on a TJ's barbera from Mendocino where, for $10, you can get a more sunny disposition to its fruit and acid while finding more length, lift and depth.

And The Pairing? Fine. Can't say much more than that.

Cost: $15 for food, $6 for wine = $21    

Wednesday: Charred Onions, Yogurt, Greens and Bread with 2014 Barão de Figueira Beira Interior

Food Details: House staple, because it's Great food. Charred onions (recipe) with yogurt, sunflower sprouts, Trader Joe's lemon-herb greens blend, Ancient Grains bread. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? Always. Always. Always. Usually use labneh, this time used Krino's. No diminishment of deliciousness. Nice greens, and a good break from the pounds of arugula we eat each week. Pita is fine with this meal, but Ancient Grains bread from Whole Foods is perfect.

How Was The Wine? This one was quickly dispatched to the fridge Sunday with fish cakes. Way too soft for the aggressiveness in that meal. But here, and we were initially quite skeptical, it stretched out nicely for a $9 siría from Whole Foods. Started out soft and rather ordinary, but quicked up halfway through, offering more distinctive lemon notes and finishing with the signature wooly siría broadness. For $9, here's a chance to find out if you like siría. It's delicious on the more spendy end. This one gives glimpses of what it can do.

And The Pairing? This is one of those meals where you can drink an acid-driven white sitting around the house that you don't really care about or your house white that you intimately know, because the food makes up for it. The food will always allow the wine to show its best face, as it did that here. And this pairing is growing evidence that Portuguese whites really like this food.

Cost: $12 for food, $9 for wine = $21  

Tuesday: Chicken Thighs with Clementines and Fennel with 2014 Louis Antoine Luyt Coelemu Cuvee Des Brasseurs Gordo Blanco

Food Details: Ottolenghi chicken thighs with clementines and arak (using ouzo). Essentially smothered chicken, Ottolenghi-style, with fennel, clementines, mustard, fennel seed, thyme, etc. White rice with onion on the side.

Did We Like It? Our third time having this and it was the best batch. Beautiful marriage of everything together. It's easy food that's fancy food. I'd pay $25 for this in a restaurant and I'd do it a few times a year.

How Was The Wine? Natural Chilean muscatel (great interview with Mr. Luyt on the Louis-Dressner site here). You say yes to that when you see it. You say double-yes to it when you drink it. Natural wine nose, the kind where you say, "I know what that fermentation tank smelled like!" A ton of smoked oranges and a bit of chile heat to this one, even a brooding moodiness to it. Beer-like, but only as a façade and not in its guts. Sometimes natural wine can come off as more of a beverage than wine. Not here. Its wine pedigree is intact, with just enough wildness to enjoy its weird and strange ride. Big fans.

And The Pairing? Hot damn! This wine love fennel, clementines and chicken thigh skin. Loved-loved-loved it! We'll be having this exact same pairing again, fo sho!

Cost: $13 for food, $22 for wine = $35

Monday: Fourth of July Ribs and Hushpuppies with Grilled Fruit Sangria

Food Details: Govind Armstrong ribs (The Daily Meal); a different white barbecue sauce than Armstrong's (Serious Eats); hushpuppies (Saveur); salad of cabbage dressed in Alabama white barbecue sauce and topped with Farmers' Market tomatoes, avocado and basil.

Did We Like It? I hate (mostly the concept of) ribs. The payoff in terms of deliciousness usually falls short of the utter mess they inherently tend to be. Not these. These are dry ribs with dry, savory notes everywhere, making for delicious rib meat, particularly when you drizzle on a lil bit of white barbecue sauce and top it with a basil leaf. Them's Good Eats. Basil and white barbecue sauce together are already bestest buds. Put this rib meat with it and it's Holiday Food. BIG hushpuppies that served as another Holiday joy. With those two things, this stupid freshness of the cabbage-tomato-avocado salad was a perfect counterpoint to all of it, a salad that could have almost been a (gassy) meal on its own. This is the first American-y meal we've had on July 4th in a long time. Glad we did.

How Was The Wine? Well, it was sangria actually. Grilled fruit sangria, a beverage we loved the first few times we had it and then it lost its newness/cachet for us (Chiarello recipe in F&W). This batch came off quite savory with less of a fruit punch. Batches of this sangria aren't sweet, but the level of fruit that comes through varies (used clementines, lemons and white grapes; no simple syrup). This batch came off like wine more than sangria, with fine balance and subtle tannic notes. Tasted like a blood-red sunset on a hot day. Used two bottles of Espiral rosé and Metaxa brandy, which we felt that next day. Funny what even a tiny bit of hard liquor does to us now.

And The Pairing? Fine, festive Fourth of July feast. These ribs aren't terribly bullying in flavor. They're more toned-down and graceful. The sangria liked that, and the bevy of flavors all over the plate like the sangria as well.

Cost: $15 for food, $14 for sangria = $29

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #29

This Ted Cruz piece in Mother Jones is bananas. HI-larious!

The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer's follow-up to The Act of Killing is worth every second. It's not so much the stares and enthusiasm from the killers, it's the giggles and pat, uniform responses over regret. 

20 days until pitchers and catchers report.

C'mon.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $103 for food and $191 for wine = $294

Sunday: Salmon and Bagels with Two Wines with 2013 Jackys Preys Cuvée de Fié Gris Touraine and 2014 Terrasse du Moulinas Blanc Elégance Languedoc-Roussillon

Food Details: Trader Joe's smoked salmon, charred-scallion cream cheese, kumatoes and arugula. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? Something about this meal on Sunday night, as my workweek ends and Mrs. Ney's comes to a close, helps reset things. It's clean, fresh, bountiful and delicious every time. The charred scallions in the cream cheese with the kumatoes made it taste a whole lot like bacon to me. Strange and welcome.

How Were The Wines And The Pairing? Both were what they always have been for us in the past, but both fell flat here with the food. VERY flat, never getting off the ground in terms of integration, cleanse or lift. Probably the charred shallots. Who knows? 

Cost: $20 for food, $21 for wine = $41   

Saturday: Rick Bayless's Tomatillo Chicken with 2014 Sauvignon Republic Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough

Food Details: From Mr. Bayless (recipe). Layered in the crock-pot: onions, potatoes, chicken, cilantro, tomatillos, pickled jalapeños and juice; salting each layer through the tomatillos. Four hours on high. Over rice with toasted coriander seeds.

Did We Like It? Always. A big dollop of sour cream here helped tone down my "free-form" dispensing of the hot juice. If we made a '50 Essential Meals' list, this would be on it.

How Was The Wine? $7 Trader Joe's New Zealand SB. Juicy tropical notes with lemongrass background and big acidity.

And The Pairing? Its perception of sweet fruit countered the spice, while the acid helped cleanse. Nice match with this food. Felt a couple ticks above a basic weeknight pairing.

Cost: $7 for food, $7 for wine = $14

Friday: Banh Mi Sandwiches

Food Details: Sifton's "vaguely Vietnamese pork tacos" for the pork turned into banh mi with the addition of lemongrass and carrot/jicama pickled salad. Ba Le baguette ($1 for two! - big bargain). Olive oil chips.

Did We Like It? Big Win! No wine.

Cost: $13 

Thursday: Hummus and Tabbouleh with 2014 La Granja Blanco Rioja

Food Details: Homemade hummus using up Monday's Solomonov tahini sauce plus two cans of chickpeas. Kale tabbouleh (Melissa Clark recipe) using fregola instead of bulgur. Pita.

Did We Like It? Perfectly simple hummus, pita and tabbouleh dinner. Had everything we'd want, plus ALL THE FIBER. That's all I'm gonna say about that. This tabbouleh is certainly 'a thing.' Loved it.

How Was The Wine? $5. White Spanish wine, a verdejo and viura blend, with crispness, dryness and creaminess; lightly floral, lightly citrusy. Tastes like vacation every time.

And The Pairing? No complaints.

Cost: $4 for food, $5 for wine = $9  

Wednesday: Jamie Oliver Indian Carrot Salad with 2014 Broc Cellars Vine Starr Zinfandel Sonoma County

Food Details: House staple. (Recipe) Crisped-up ground lamb with garam masala. Carrots and shallots dressed with lemon, ginger, cumin, Thai peppers and olive oil. Roasted cauliflower as a new addition, cuz we had to use up the cauliflower. Spinach blend mixed in with cilantro and mint. Sesame seeds on top. Naan and radish raita on the side. 

Did We Like It? A very good, spicy version of something we have often, because it had all the vitamins and tastes like Love. Roasted cauliflower was very welcome, though wasn't essential and didn't improve this already great meal. Don't make any radish raita recipe that says to sauté the radishes. Completely loses the radish effect, turning the raita from a refreshing, crisp cleanser to something quite boring. Overall, such a good meal. And the wine helped.

How Was The Wine? Gotta drink the Broc. More is coming. 12.8% alcohol on this zinfandel, with fresh red berry fruit and enough heft to identify as a zin while loving how so stupid light it is. Screams for food, and it didn't disappoint. 

And The Pairing? This food was spicy and the zinfandel, as zin does, countered that spice, opening up a great length in the wine and lovely fresh berry refreshment. Initially thought this might be a somewhat odd choice for this salad, but it worked in spades. Both of us fell in love with the wine. 

Cost: $14 for food, $32 for wine = $46    

Tuesday: Beef Cheeks and Chickpea Purée with 2008 Sanguis Endangered Species Act 1-3 Santa Ynez Valley

Food Details: Recipe from Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes In The World. Paulina beef cheeks marinated in garlic, cloves, black pepper/corns, green peppercorns, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, and the TJ's barbera. Braised/roasted for 3 1/2 hours. Chickpeas skinned (creates a wonderfully smooth texture) and puréed with rosemary, stock, salt and pepper. Fried shallots on top. Parsley over everything.

Did We Like It? Curious. Yes, we liked it a lot. Both of us felt some diminishment from having this a couple of times before relatively recently. Blew our minds when we first had it. Now, it feels like something we should have every other year to maintain that "blowing of the mind." Curiously, when we first had it, the first 8-10 bites were utter enjoyment and it tapered off after that. This time, it got better as it cooled down. Fried shallots are boss. 

How Was The Wine? A surprise. We bought a fair amount of Sanguis wines after a Sanguis dinner at Blackbird a few years ago, then we sort of lost interest and they sat in the cellar neglected. This one, a syrah blend with a little viognier and roussanne in there, was essentially popped and poured after checking it an hour before. Lovely savory blueberry, black olive, some sort of cinnamon-driven spice mixture, and mint notes. Fairly concentrated but never a big fruit bomb. And remained savory throughout. Happy viognier lift at the end. A bigger wine in terms of alcohol but this maintained its happy place admirably. Shocked by how savory it was. It's drinking well right now and currently half the cost of what we bought it for (gulp).

And The Pairing? Very good, almost great. Loved the purée and shallots. Liked the beef cheeks. Mostly, we were happy to find a meal that utilized and served this wine so well. That's the goal. Always. 

Cost: $35 for food, $83 for wine = $118        

Monday: Fish Cakes and Fried Pickled Potatoes with 2009 Domaine des Baumard Clos du Papillon Savennières

Food Details: Fish cakes made with swai, three freezer scallops, eggs, pepper, coriander, ginger, cayenne, garlic, breadcrumbs, cilantro and flour, pan-fried. (from "fish balls" recipe in The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, page 196). Michael Solomonov's fried pickled potatoes (recipe). Cilantro and sesame seeds on top. Harissa tahini to dip in everything.

Did We Like It? This is the best fish cake recipe we've ever had, and we've had these fairly often of late. The texture of them allows for space and enjoyment of every ingredient. The "new" in this meal were the pickled potatoes. Potatoes soaked in pickling juice; drained and patted dry, then fried. It's like having delicious fry-based food that comes off so gosh-darn light and peppy. So two fried items on the plate and not one bite tasted like a big plate of fried food. This was a great meal.

How Was The Wine? Quiet compared to other Savennières we've had, including this one from a different vintage. All the notes of Savennières chenin, but with a paced, ethereal quality, and that was frankly welcome, as we worried over whether this was going to work with the food. Light chamomile and tea,very little wax that showed up more as an impression of wax, poached apricot and pear, and a finish that was a brief summary of everything before. 

And The Pairing? At first, we weren't sure this was working as we starting eating, but as we got into it, we enjoyed the subtlety and grace it offered. Backward expression that took some getting used to, finally landing on a great deal of enjoyment. 

Cost: $10 for food, $43 for wine = $53    

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #30

Remember when Trump lost Iowa. Remember that? Remember the onslaught of media coverage for months, then two out of 100 registered Iowa voters voted for him?

That was awesome.

The Assassin, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's first film in eight years, might be one of the most beautiful, visceral, and perplexing films I've seen in years.

A.O. Scott releases his new book, Better Living Through Criticism, this Tuesday. Public notice.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $130 for food and $102 for wine = $232

Sunday: Choucroute Garnie with 2014 Domaine Weinbach Gewürztraminer Clos des Capucins Cuvee Theo Alsace

Source: David Leite's choucroute garnie recipe, using pork ribs and kielbasa instead of smoked pork and other wursts; Muscadet instead of beer.

Food Details: Kielbasa, pork ribs, bacon, sauerkraut, potatoes, onions, juniper berries, clove, garlic, bay, salt and pepper; all thrown in the crock pot for about five hours. TJ's baguette and Kerrygold butter.

Did We Like It? Merely fine and never reaching the point of like. Used Paulina sauerkraut instead of Boar's Head and it didn't create the sauerkraut glue between all the ingredients that this meal had last time. Everything tasted...separate instead of having that Old World, Alsatian, cold weather deliciousness. Pork ribs were tough as well. Same prep as last time, just didn't get off the ground.

How Was The Wine? It took awhile to show itself, but as it warmed/opened up, a gewürztraminer richness and floral-spicy underpinning showed its face. Lightly fruity and round, with grapefruit acid and lychee bounce. Nice enough. Probably needed a decant. Probably wouldn't buy it again.

And The Pairing? Meh. Food was there. Wine was there. Very little in the way of linkage or pairing love.

Cost: $22 for food, $30 for wine = $52  

Saturday: Lamb Salami, Broiled Feta, Arugula, Pepper Relish and Bread with 2014 Caves de Charmelieu Saint-Bris Sauvignon Blanc

Food Details: Sliced lamb salami, broiled feta, arugula, pepper relish made with roasted red peppers with preserved lemon, scallions, parsley. Pugliese bread. More pick-n-choose. Bread topped with all of said ingredients.

Did We Like It?  We LOVED it. It had everything. Creamy, broiled feta goodness, playing off the lamby salami, playing off the pepper-preserved lemon pop, playing off the arugula peppery cleanse. Had verticality. HUGE fans!

How Was The Wine? This was Greeky, and a Greeky wine would have been DE-licious here, but we didn't have any in the house. The Saint-Bris served a tick more than adequately, offering lemony cream and grassy verve. Not wow-inducing, just easy, cheap SB on the cheap.

And The Pairing? Good. Enough. Initial mild skepticism led to a general "this ain't too shabby!"

Cost: $18 for food, $10 for wine = $28  

Friday: Fenugreek-perfumed Black-Eyed Pea Curry, Naan and Raita with 2014 Domingo Molina Hermanos Torrontés Salta

Food Details: (From 660 Curries, page 321, "Fenugreek-Perfumed Black-Eyed Peas") Black-eyed peas, onion, garlic, ginger (added), peppers, tomatoes, dried fenugreek leaves, turmeric. Make the day before. It's better. Cucumber/cilantro raita and naan, to dip, dunk and cool.

Did We Like It? A fine version of this curry. Not the best version, but a good version. But a curry, with raita, with naan, with all of the back-and-forth eating that entails, led (and always leads) to a satisfying meal.

How Was The Wine/Pairing? Basic torrontés, nothing special. And nothing special here, as it drank like it was missing something in mineral form and more than its tiny wisp of floral notes. BUT had just enough goodness to think, "meh...we're good."

Cost: $7 for food, $12 for wine = $19  

Thursday: Rotisserie Chicken, Kumatoes, Salad and Bread with NV Trader Joe's Brut Rosé Sonoma County

Food Details: Mariano's rotisserie chicken, kumatoes, sweet pea salad (pea tendril-heavy), take-and-bake Italian-style batard bread and mayo. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? Fine. Good. Basic version of a house classic. Should have made a white BBQ sauce.

How Was The Wine? $10 Trader Joe's sparkler, a pinot noir and pinot meunier blend, so Blanc de Noirs done in the Champagne method from Sonoma County. Rather fascinating how personality-free this drinking was. "Well, it's certainly...wine."

And The Pairing? Meh. The wine was better on its own.

Cost: $20 for food, $10 for wine = $30

Wednesday: A Quick Note

I had a work meeting. Mrs. Ney ate use-stuff-up leftovers by compiling naan pizzas with scallion cream cheese from Sunday, empanadas filling from Tuesday, almost-forgotten asparagus from the crisper and (why do we have these?) fish sticks and drank leftover fridge fié gris. What easily could have been quite depressing became an utterly delicious textural meal with a fridge wine that was so much more than that. A big surprise. Huge! [$5 in odds and ends.]

Tuesday: Flap Meat, chimichurri and Empanadas with 2011 Three Wine Co. Zinfandel Contra Costa

Food Details: Paulina Meat Market flap meat with churrasco marinade, seared medium-rare. Red chimichurri. Homemade potato and smoked cheddar empanadas (Tanis recipe). Whole Foods Asian blend salad to finish.

Did We Like It? Meat and potatoes in Latin form. We always like it. Chimichurri on the beef was nice. Chimichurri on the empanadas was boss! An all-around delicious meal.

How Was The Wine? Opened up a Pruno Ribera del Duero to start, but the chimichurri gutted it. This $13 zinfandel blend (77% zinfandel, 17% petite sirah, 4% carignan, 2% alicante borscht) from Contra Costa falls right into the Marietta/La Posta world of very affordable and very delicious table reds that we could drink by the bucket. Good fruit, impressive second act, finishes savory, and wants/loves food. What else do you need? Dark, richer fruit, zinfandel profile but never gets California-heavy, nice length, good spice, bright overall. Happy juice.

And The Pairing? No complaints in the least. Enough guts in the wine to stand up to the stronger flavors in the food, so the wine turned into another flavor on the table that felt like it was meant to go with everything. No gushing here with the pairing, just an appreciation for what it did and an appreciation for how it continued to like what was on the table to the last bite.

Cost: $24 for food, $13 for wine = $37      

Monday: Duck Confit and Dirty Rice with 2014 Broc Cellars Carignan Alexander Valley

Food Details: Whole Foods Mary's Duck Confit, crisped up in cast-iron, served with pomegranate gastrique (from this recipe). Susan Spicer wild and dirty rice, substituting tasso for ground pork, poblano for green pepper, and Carolina Gold Rice for long-grain. Broiled asparagus.

Did We Like It? Jeebus, yes! And the duck confit was a bit tough! D'Artagnan duck confit always and forever after this. Carolina Gold Rice, after shipping, is $10/lb. Ten bucks a pound...for rice. And it's worth every freaking cent. Such...grace in the rice. It's tough to describe why it's so good. It simply lifted up and broadened out all the other flavors it played with, creating a more complex, full picture of what was happening. Like the best bass player in the world...or something. Mixing in the duck confit with a drizzle of gastrique into the rice was a perfect bite. And it got all matchy-matchy with the wine.

How Was The Wine? Broc...being...Broc. Perfect here. Sneaky depth, spice and length for a wine that initially comes off as a light, fruity, floral quaffer. It shows itself first as a simple little number, then it shows just how deep, complex and interesting it really is. Raspberry, wild burning herbs, wonderfully broad and generous. We love mostly verything Broc makes. But we love his carignan the most.

And The Pairing? This is where it shined. The Broc dug into the dirty rice and became so much more complete and wide and pairing-perfect. This wine needs food. This food served it oh-so well.

Cost: $34 for food, $27 for wine = $61